Broken
by adlyb
Summary: From the moment her blood slides through his veins, things start going very smoothly for him. Sylaire, Companion to "Alone in the Night". Can be read independently.


**Broken**

By adlyb

Disclaimer: I own nothing, except these words.

…………………………….

From the moment her blood slides through his veins, things start going very smoothly for him. He reaches out his hand and the tin can _obeys_. Within seconds it's in his hand. A smile tugs at his lips.

Inside him, hunger yawns and stretches. Like a bear, waking up from a long winter. He can feel them, crawling inside his head, pushing against his skull. His prey, out there, waiting, _vulnerable_. They call to him.

Blood bubbles in his ears, and suddenly he can hear _everything_. Including Maya, screeching. Her wails are a high-pitched keen on the wind. Like a kicked puppy. He decides to leave now, before she goes looking for him.

_But to where?_

Carelessly, he rolls the empty medical vial between his fingers. The smooth, glassy feel of the vial between his roughened fingers gives him the idea. It's so obvious he has to resist the urge not to laugh at himself for not thinking of it earlier. He must go to her. Take her delicious power and become stronger.

His name, mixed with a series of oaths, catches his attention. Maya could wait. He wouldn't risk her fury until he was invincible to her wrath.

An image of a golden cheerleader in a little red slip of a dress flashes through his mind. Mouth-watering.

He crushes the can, throws it against the wall. Then, almost reverently, slides the glass vial into his pocket. Folds up the case with the rest and slings it under his arm, intent on finding a suitable safe-place for it soon.

When he walks down the busy New York street again, he's no longer Gabriel Gray, and he's no longer Sylar, really. He's something else. Something evolved. He decides to keep the alias, for personal reasons, but he sense the change. He's stronger, now, wiser and crueler. And the world is at his mercy.

…………………………………………….

His first attempts to find her fail.

Initially, he plans to steal a car, maybe, and drive down to Texas. He has no doubt that her father keeps her under lock and key, but he doesn't really feel that that will be an issue. Partly because he wants her power, and partly because he feels pleasure in the idea of tearing Noah Bennett apart, he decides to make an ostentatious entrance. Something where he can just walk into their living room one night, when they're all at home in front of their nice warm television or at the dinner table. Something where he can catch them by surprise and dispose of the wife and the extra kid quickly, cleanly, before taking out Bennett. He'll take his time on it, do it carefully and methodically and enjoyable, before moving onto the cheerleader. Claire.

He wants something where he can watch her cower in the corner, where he can play with his toy before breaking it. Quickly, he amends the thought.

_Not breaking it. Fixing it._

Because they're not using their powers. They don't want them. He does. By annexing them into his own body, he's _improving _them. Doing them a favor.

Ultimately, he wants something where he can savor the moment. Where he can take a minute to pause, to reflect, to _feel _her, underneath him, screaming his name and drowning in her own blood, her beautiful, wonderful, heady blood, before he slices her skull open, watches as the blood sluices down her golden brow. Something like that.

What he gets instead is a burnt out hollow of a house in an evacuated neighborhood. DANGER! HIGH LEVELS OF RADIOACTIVITY! signs line the edges of the street. Apparently there was an accident involving an explosion or something. Just looking at the destruction makes his blood stir, makes his hands heat up. He feels the energy building, just beneath the surface of his skin, tightening painfully and exerting dangerous pressure on his chest. He seethes at this new development.

It's very hard to walk away calmly when victory is ripped away so suddenly.

But he does. And there's no explosion.

He stops in at a nearby convenience store. He buys some _magazines_ and an ice cream sandwich. As he's checking out, he casually mentions the wreckage to her. His Texas accent is flawless.

_I was wondrin'- I'm in town visiting a relation, but I guess they forgot to tell me they moved… The street they lived in is deserted… Do you know what happened?_

_Oh! Do you mean the one that's evacuated? With the burnt down house?_

_Yeah! That's the one! Wow! That sure was some destruction! Do you happen to know what happened?_

_There was an explosion or somethin'. Broke some power lines and pipes… Whole place started seeping up radioactivity! The whole neighborhood had to evacuate…_

_How did _that_happen? _

_It was a freak accident! It sure makes you worry! _

_Wow! And what happened to that poor family that lived there? _

_Oh, they just moved on out. I suppose it was just too difficult to start over here! _

_Now, that's a real shame._

He smiles and takes the bag from her unassuming hands. Walks out of the store. And then he screams. Yells in fury. Kicks the dumpster until it's dented. He wonders if the exploding man had anything to do with this. Decides he's just being paranoid. But… he imagines the destruction rendered upon that block looked a lot like Manhattan did in the painter's pictures.

The thought makes him quiet. He worries that maybe she's dead. That maybe he won't be able to take revenge upon her family after all. And then he remembers. Kirby Plaza. She was _there_, in her cute little suit, with a bright silver gun in hand. He chuckles at the memory. The image was too wrong to be true.

Sylar makes his way to the '95 Chevy he stole in Manhattan and decides it's time to come up with a new plan.

What he _wants_ is to be able to find her. He's damn angry that she's not where he left her, and the desire to track her down and harvest her brain is a living, breathing thing within him.

But he doesn't think that's possible.

Reasonably, there's no prospect of finding her. At least, not without the addition of Molly Walker's power…

Going back to New York to face Maya is out of the question. He simply refuses to risk himself without Claire's gift.

So, instead, he chooses to go on his way. Continue moving, hunting. If he kills enough people, he's bound to run into her eventually.

…………………………………

Sylar does some recon, thinking maybe he'll take the power from that blond who tried to kill him in Suresh's apartment. He's still bitter about that. He doesn't like being caught off guard.

A plethora of details about the girl are readily found; her name is Elle; her father is the head of Primatech Paper (no surprise), and she's left a paper trail of dead bodies across three continents. He almost admires her.

But in the end he decides to save her for later. There is something vital and interesting about her, and he chooses to let her live until he's decided what it is about her that catches his fancy.

……………………………

The first power he takes gives him the ability to dream walk. The woman who has it is beautiful, with honey colored hair and sweet eyes. He kills her in her sleep, and has to laugh at the irony.

What happens _next_catches him off guard.

He goes to sleep that night, wondering if it would be just like normal or if he'd be cognizant. It was a little of both.

At first, he isn't_aware _he is dreaming. He's back in the alley, the vial of blood poised above his forearm, ready to sting him with its healing caress. The dream is just replaying an old memory… Of course, he doesn't _know _he's reliving an old memory. All he knows is the anticipation, the wild, giddy exuberance of the moment. At the periphery of his senses he hears anxious footsteps approaching, but he pays it no heed. No one is really going to bother a supposed junkie. With relish, he pierces himself with the needle, penetrating the virgin skin of his forearm. His thumb strokes the crimson into his veins, and he sighs when he feels the effects. He's tingling all over.

_Oh. _

The voice is high and clear. Behind it, he can sense fear. But it's very numb.

He looks up and it's_her_. He tries, in vain, to fight the smile that ultimately succeeds in playing over his lips.

_Look what we have here. What a fortunate coincidence._

Devastation plays over her expressive features. As if… as if she's failed somehow. He brushes it off. It doesn't matter that she regrets her decision to turn into this dark, muddy alley. What matters is that she's here, right in front of him, right when he needs her to be. It's destiny.

Claire is about to say something, and, for whatever reason, he is vitally interested in whatever it is she has to say. But his hearing has just kicked back in, and he can hear activity emanating from Suresh's apartment. It won't be long now before that girl with the appetizing electrical power and Maya are on his trail. He has to be quick, stealthy, if he hopes to survive on unscathed. He places a finger over his lips to keep Claire silent…

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Claire start running, towards the figures he can now see clambering down the fire escape. Bright blue seers his vision for a moment, followed by the acrid smell of burning flesh.

_Elle. _

It comes out perfectly in sync, two voices twined to sound one name.

And that's when he knows.

This _must _be a dream. The realization is so clear, so glaringly obvious, that he feels a little upset that he hadn't noticed before. He glances over to the figures running down the fire escape, almost at ground level. This never happened. A few weeks ago, he didn't know Elle from Eve. He can see her, now, and her face is rendered in perfect detail. He_knows _he didn't catch more than a fleeting glance of blonde hair when he first encountered her.

Now, when he looks harder, he can see that Elle, Maya, and Mohinder aren't really there. Sure, they're mirror images of the real things… But there's a faded out quality to them, now that he's really looking. Surrounding him, the alley is _exactly _the same as it was that day, thanks to his eidetic memory, making the illusion even more surreal. He really is impressed.

He looks over to Claire, expecting her to be as faded out as the other three. Except she isn't. There she is, in all of her shining glory. His mind races, reels. Grasps for some sort of plausible explanation. Finally, he hits upon it. Perhaps… perhaps it was possible that their dreams had _merged_. The possibilities were mind-boggling.

His lips are encircling some villainous, snarky remark when another blast of lightening steals his attention. The moment he turns his eyes away, she's off. At first he thinks she's fleeing, searching desperately for an escape route. Sylar's already pulling out his telekinesis when he sees her pull a silver gun out from under her jacket and aim it at Suresh. With practiced ease, he yanks her backwards, into his waiting grasp. He wants an explanation to this turn of events. For the life of him, he can't imagine why she could possibly want to kill Mohinder Suresh.

_My, my. Kitten's grown claws._

When she shoots him a dirty look, he can't suppress the mirthful laughter that rolls out of his mouth. She's just so… stereotypically teenaged. Angst ridden and adolescent.

_If you're going to kill me, just get it over with. _

It's a serious statement. She really wouldn't mind him killing her. It makes him very, very curious. Besides, it's a dream. He's not sure killing her in her dreams would count. He's not sure if killing her in her dreams would kill her in reality. And then there's always the scary thought that it would kill her but give him no access to her power. So he picks a different road instead.

_Tempting offer. But I think I may have to give you a rain-check on that one. _

_What does that mean?_

_Well, before I take that _delicious _power of yours, I was hoping to have a little heart to heart. _

_I prefer my plan. _

Claire's stubborn insistence on death amuses him. After all, he'll kill her eventually, anyway. Why hurry the inevitable? The idea of her blood on his hands makes him smile. He's just beginning to relax, because he _knows _she thinks this is real, when her body becomes somehow less corporeal. She feels lighter in his grasp, less real, somehow. Because, he realizes, she's _waking up_.

_I _will _find you. _

The statement is equal parts promise and threat.

When Sylar wakes up the next morning, he feels well rested. He thinks that it was the best night's sleep he's had in a long time. Somewhere, she out there, waiting for him to descend upon her and claim what was rightfully his to begin with.

…………………………………….

He reasons that the girl's gotta sleep sometime. It's a reasonable assumption.

When he can't find her the first few nights, he decides he must just need practice. So he spends his nights ambling into other people's dreams, until he is a skilled sleep walker. But even then he cannot find her. He begins to think that maybe she doesn't sleep at all.

Claire becomes a preoccupation. He can feel the black wings of obsession settling over him, and so he fights to escape from their grasp. He starts by redirecting his attention towards Elle.

For a time, his would-be assailants are together. Mohinder, Elle, and Maya are an ideal team. Mohinder, because he plans well. Elle, because she has no scruples. And Maya because she's hell bent on revenge. Their dreams are fascinating, the perfect playgrounds for him to haunt, undetected. They all assume his presence in their dreams (nightmares) is a natural response to their fear that he will find them. What they don't know is that he already has, and is really just avoiding them. For now.

One night he finds something in Mohinder's mind which _fascinates _him. He sees the reason why Claire would dream of murdering him, and it's all _so_clear. Ironic, too. The cheerleader, out to kill the man who killed her father, much like the geneticist, out to kill the man who murdered _his _father.

Unfortunately, the plot twist just strengthens his already intense interest in her.

……………………………….

Years pass.

It's been so long, without any trace of her, that he's pretty much forgotten about her. Sylar spends his time hunting out special people, devouring their powers, adding to his personal arsenal. His personal favorite is definitely the one he got from the blonde pyrotechnic in Mexico.

He's on the trail of a man with the power to duplicate himself when he finds out the man has been murdered. Shot through the head.

At first, he's angry that the bastard slipped through his fingertips. Angry that he was deprived of an ability. Then he decides it's just one ability. There are always more where that one came from. He can always find someone even _more _special to kill. With that in mind, he goes back to his hotel room and decides to use Isaac Mendez's power to paint. He doesn't feel like choosing a victim at random, and feels that he needs the guidance. And that's when he paints Claire.

It shocks him. Shocks him because he's _tried_ before, and it's never worked. Her life was just too uneventful, he supposes.

Finally, he looks down to really _see_ what he's drawn.

And it's Claire, dressed up in black pants and a red top, her heel crushing some guy's skull into the floor as she empties a magazine into his cranium.

_Well… Damn._

The next day he sets out for his next victim. He can't say he's surprised when the man in his painting matches the man in front of him, lying in a pool of his own blood. Though, it is a little bit upsetting. He kind of wishes he had been the one to kill the man. Breathing through water would have been neat.

It doesn't happen often, but every now and then he hears about someone dead, and he curses under his breath at another ability lost to him. It's not often, but, when it happens, he's sure that he would have had her if he'd arrived in town just a few hours earlier.

He never catches her.

Each time, Sylar goes back to his hotel room, sits down on the crumpled hotel sheets and tries to sketch. He comes up with a few images, but they are rarely anything interesting. The infrequency with which he paints Claire makes him think that she must be trying to keep a low profile. When he does draw her, though, she's always in some dark room, alone or with a victim. There are never enough details to tell him where she is, though. And when his path comes close to crossing with hers, he's always a few hours too late. She's always well out of town.

………………………………….

He decides to travel. To clear his mind of blondes and concentrate on more important issues. Like the accruement of new powers.

South America is unappealing. He figures he's already done a tour of _that_Godforsaken place, and wants to try something more exotic. He starts with Africa.

While there, he discovers a series of new talents. It's remarkably easy to track special people down. In the West, where people feared anything different from themselves, individuals were forced to keep their abilities a secret. Here, where tribal life still reigns in some of the more remote parts of the continent, the people are proud of their abilities. Their neighbors assume they have been blessed. It never occurs to them to hide their powers.

He cuts a swath through Africa, starting in the northwest and going south, before looping back up to the northeast. On his way, besides learning over thirty new dialects (he _loves_ his memory), he also picks up some new talents. Although teleportation is probably the _most _useful skill he learns, he likes pheromone manipulation the best. Its potential marvels him.

On a whim, he decides to catch a flight into Tokyo. It takes a long time to get his connections down, but when the plane flies over the bright city, exaggerated city, he knows it was worth the trouble.

Sylar spends his days exploring the city, soaking in the atmosphere. He's walking through an old cemetery when he first hears it. Beneath the ground, he can hear someone screaming. Screaming and pounding against the dirt. Six feet down, someone is buried alive. With faint curiosity, he listens to his heartbeat slow and eventually stop. Then it starts up again. And stops. And starts. He spends half an hour listening to the man scream and pound against his coffin before he decides he wants to investigate.

He waits until night, when the cemetery is empty. Takes a shovel and starts digging. What he finds is a tall, light-haired man, crammed into a tiny Japanese coffin.

_Thank God,_ he murmurs under his breath. Then- _How did you find me?_

_I heard you scream._

He is wary, now.

_Are you from the Company?_

Sylar smiles.

_Not quite. _

He raises a finger and splits the man's skull open. Watches at it instantaneously heals over again. Feels laughter, pure and unadulterated, bubbling up from his chest. More aggressively, faster than the stranger can heal, he slices his head clean open, takes out the brain and begins to examine it.

Sylar shoves the body back into the coffin and uses his telekinesis to rebury him.

By the end of the night, he feels pretty much invincible.

…………………………..

Feeling more comfortable than he has in a long time, Sylar books a flight back to L.A. and decides, from there, to go back to New York. He rents a hotel room in a nicer establishment than he usually allows himself and falls into bed, ready for a long night of sleep. Perhaps he will check in on a few people.

What he doesn't expect is for _Claire _to be there. Ever since that initial run-in, she's been absent.

At first, all he can do is look at her. She hasn't noticed him quite yet- he can tell she's in that misty plane between a_sleep _and a_wake_, and he doesn't want to startle her out of her dream. Lucky for him, he's a patient man. It doesn't take long for Claire to be fully, totally, deeply asleep.

_I never thought you'd show up._

He's being honest.

The way she laughs digs into him, making tiny little perforated marks in his soul. It's an irresistible sound. Unconsciously, he takes a step towards her.

_I never planned to come back._

Claire's voice is rich, full. The sound of it satiates a previously unrecognized desire within him. It makes him notice the changes. Where before she was timid, afraid, now she is aggressive, saucy, even.

So he says the only thing he can think to say, which is:

_Sleeping is good for the mind, you know._

It sounds silly, even to him.

_I disagree. _

Her conviction makes him look at her harder. And then he sees it. He sees where she's out of sync with the rest of reality, where the fabric of her being is beginning to unwind. Sylar can see every malfunctioning part of her. When he looks her up and down, every flaw is highlighted. They make his palms itch with the desire to tinker with them, mend them, put them in order. The arousal he feels when he studies her numerous imperfections convinces him to give her the proposition.

_You're broken, Claire. _

_Your point?_

_I could fix you._

Before he has time to fully appreciate the effect of his proposal, she begins to fade. It's like she's there one second and gone the next. For a long time, he scowls into the space her body used to occupy.

……………………………..

The encounter reawakens his interest in her. Gives him the energy he needs to renew his hunt.

Sylar spends days locked in his hotel room, imagining new episodes with her. He imagines her death beneath his fingers. He imagines the joy of carnage, the achievement of her kill.

What baffles him is that, in the end, he doesn't enjoy fantasizing about her demise. It's no longer interesting.

Instead, he prefers to dream about keeping her. The first time he considers it, he shakes it out of his head. But the idea keeps reappearing, until, really, it seems like the only option.

It is not that he is lonely. In all likelihood, he could keep living alone, a solitary predator, perpetually.

Yet he is fascinated by the idea of a companion. Fascinated by someone to come home to, fascinated by the idea of a warm body pressed next to him. He thinks back on his time with Maya, and he realizes he misses the physicality.

Fleetingly, he considers going after Elle instead. Secretly, he believes it would be easier to sway Elle to his sensibilities. He knows she's already half-way there.

But the image of Claire just won't fade. Claire, in all her invulnerable glory, golden and irresistible.

With the image of her emblazoned in his mind, he makes the decision to commit himself to her.

Ultimately, it's the question of how to find her which bothers him. Briefly, he considers taking a stroll over to Mohinder's flat, but decides taking Molly's power would cut the fun short too quickly. Instead, he wants to find her- fair and square.

So he looks for a pattern to her killing. Sometimes, it seems random. He knows she kills more than just gifted individuals. But he also knows that she does not kill indiscriminately. Eventually, after weeks spent pouring over old memories and researching his victims, he finds his answer.

Really, he's surprised he didn't think of it before. Because, like everything else in her life, her hit list is ruled by the Company.

……………………….

He makes it a game. Goes on a new killing spree, bloodier than any one that's gone before. He practically bathes in the red of it. In order to catch Claire's attention, he sprinkles his victims with (former) Company members. Makes sure the corpses are clearly marked with his signature.

Eventually, she catches on. Begins upping the stakes, occasionally getting ahead of him and catching someone before he can. He always laughs when he finds a clean bullet wound in the middle of one of his prospective-victims skulls. He's always impressed by how sterile, how clean and cut the kill looks. Always.

So he finally steals Molly Walker's life, finally embraces her power. With that, he's able to stay ahead of her pretty well. With her power, combined with teleportation, he _should _also be able to catch her. But the woman is just too slippery, really. Sylar begins to suspect that, unless he is able to arrive at the same meeting place at the same time, he won't be able to lay a finger on her.

……………………………

Of course, he hears about it when she kills Bob. There was no way _not _to hear about it. Especially if you were keeping tabs inside the company. With Bob gone, he knows that Mohinder is the likely successor. Unsurprisingly, he's right.

At that point, he only has to sit and wait. Like a spider.

He waits longer than he expected to.

…………………………..

Sylar knows she is coming before even she does. Isaac Mendez's skill of precognition ensures him of that.

With utter confidence, he weaves down the busy New York streets, making his way to Mohinder's apartment. He wants to dress to impress, so he wears his very best black coat, his very darkest sneer.

It only takes a second to pin Mohinder to the sealing, to still his tongue and clench his airways to the point where any breath wasted on speech is a mistake.

Once that is taken care of, Sylar relaxes. Sits down at Mohinder's desk and begins listlessly sifting through his important documents. He gets bored quickly, though, so he fills his time by carving patterns in Mohinder's flesh. Meanwhile, he uses Molly Walker's power to keep tabs on Claire.

Now she is in a hotel room.

Now she is out on the streets.

Now she is at the door.

Now she is here.

He turns around to glance at her.

God, is she beautiful.

_I told you I'd find you someday. _

She doesn't take the bait.

_Where is he? _

He wishes he'd had the opportunity to kill the mind reader as well.

_I spent a lot of time looking for you. You move enough to make _me _look sedentary! _

_Where is he?_

Still no response. He hates being ignored. She is more emphatic this time, so he decides to humor her. Just this once. But only because he enjoys it.

_Suresh?_

_Yes. _

She's so sure of herself. He loves it.

_Oh. He's over there._

Sylar gestures to the ceiling.

The sight of him makes her livid. He wonders exactly why.

_Let him down._

She grinds it out between her teeth, and he can tell she's holding back a temper. Part of him wants to provoke her, but he knows there will be time for that later.

_Only if you say please._

He can't resist teasing her.

_Please. _

Her unexpectedly immediate obedience pleases him. He decides she deserves a reward.

So he lets the geneticist fall to the ground. With his improved hearing, he can hear bones snap.

But that's no deterrent for Claire. No, not for his Claire. She simply cradles the bleeding doctor into his arms, fills a syringe with her lovely blood, and gently injects him with the panacea. Patiently, she waits for him to heal, giving him the love and comfort of a mother.

Mohinder looks into her eyes with awe, gratitude. Sylar can sense the burgeoning affection, and it makes him feel sickly jealous.

It's at that moment that Claire pulls her beloved handgun from her pocket and blows his brains out.

The sudden action makes him jump, then smile and whistle and clap. Best show in a century.

_Brava. I don't think I could have done it better myself. _

He enjoys the way she looks at him. In her eyes, he sees desperation. He sees a silent plea for salvation. She's looking at him like he's her fucking hero, and all he can do is watch her, bask in the feel of it.

She's looking at him like she wants to die.

When he steps closer, so he can smell her, _feel _her, so he can lean down and whisper, feather-light, against her ear-

_I think… I'd like to try something different with you._

- he can feel her disappointment, in the way her figure sags, smell her fear, permeating from her buttery skin.

Curiously, he presses cool lips against her warm skin. She tastes delicious.

He wraps his arms about her, locks her frame against his, and looks into her stormy eyes. He sees the darkness there, and he wants to swallow her up. He sees the mistakes, the agony of living a flawed existence, and he wants to ease her pain, make her better. After all, he made a promise to fix her.

He inhales her scent, closes his eyes, and then they are gone.


End file.
